One Star Trek Costume Left Patrick Stewart With Lasting Damage
Sir Patrick Stewart might be forever grateful to "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and his role as Picard, but one thing he will never appreciate is the Lycra onesies the cast was forced to endure during the show's early seasons. An inconvenience to most of the cast, the supertight Starfleet uniform actually caused the Jean-Luc Picard actor to suffer from serious neck and back pain — so serious that he was almost forced to get litigious.
Speaking with BBC Radio 1, Stewart recalled how the cast were "practically poured into our costumes for the first two years," adding that they had been intentionally given uniforms that were one size too small. The cast's costumes had been so tight that the actors had to tug on them every time they changed from sitting to standing or vice versa — some fairly amusing supercuts of this uniform-rearranging "Picard maneuver" can be found on YouTube.
But when the physical toll of wearing a too-tight uniform drove the actor to a chiropractor for neck, back, and shoulder pain, Stewart's doc became genuinely concerned that it would eventually cause permanent damage. To keep this from happening, the chiro warned the studio that they could be faced with a lawsuit if they didn't get Stewart into a costume that wasn't actively harming his spine.
It was always about Gene Roddenberry's vision --- for sexy Trek
The original "Next Generation" uniforms worn by the cast were developed by the show's first costume designer, William Ware Theiss. But the reasoning behind the muscle-hugging look came straight from "Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry. "Gene Roddenberry loooooved it," Patrick Stewart explained to the BBC, later adding, "He wanted everything to be absolutely chic and smooth."
But for Roddenberry, it wasn't just about presenting a slick-looking Starfleet uniform. In his memoir "Making It So," Stewart called the producer "a fan of cheesecake." Despite his overall progressive vision for "Star Trek," Roddenberry's vision for a sexy future has often been accused of objectifying actors in sexist fashion. As Stewart wrote, "We all suffered to a degree from a directive to look sexy," adding that Ware's costumes were designed "so that they never wrinkled and kept our bodies on full display."
Despite the tight costume leaving Stewart in constant pain, Roddenberry hadn't taken his many complaints seriously. Fortuitously, Stewart's agent, Steve Dontanville, recommended he see a doctor around the time the show's original costume designer was retiring, and new designer Robert Blackman was much more sympathetic to Stewart's pain. Even after Blackman pulled together the sharp-looking two-piece polyester costume Picard can be seen wearing in later seasons, Roddenberry's insistence on a wrinkle-free uniform was unwavering. Luckily, Stewart had a very special shirt tug in his back pocket for dealing with the issue.